Hunter K.

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 06:00:29 GMT

Since I've been off, most of our schedule that we had has gone *poof* and we're sort of free-floating through the days. It's nice in a way but bedtime has become a bit of a pain again as I crack the whip.

It's almost amusing in a way how many tricks Hunter has for keeping attention even after he's been placed in bed.

1) The outright crying and whimpering trick to gain my pity.
2) The 5 W's trick where he continually asks "who" "where" "what" type questions to get me to talk to him.
3) The hug/kiss trick where he constantly will ask for more hugs and kisses. Or blow kisses.
4) The blanket/pajama/pillow trick where he'll purposely kick off his blankets or take his pillow out of the case or take off/mess up his pjs so that I'll have to come in and fix things.
5) The "oops I dropped" tricked where he throws things off the bed by 'accident' so I'll have to come and get them and give them to him.

I'm sure there's others.

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 19:03:53 GMT

The summer just keeps moving, I can't believe how busy we've been! There's been a lot of downtime, but you just don't feel it when you're hustling so much to all these places. It's been amazing. :-D

Yesterday it was off with Lolo to Beacon Hill Petting Zoo to see the new baby piglets.

We checked out the various ducks and one of the bunnies that was in a display cage. Hunter was very enamored with the little guy and didn't want to leave. Took some urging about the other animals before we could move on. The resident donkey had given birth a bit ago (middle left) and he managed to get quite close to a peacock (middle right) and wanted to pet it. Peacock scuttered off behind a fence pretty fast. Around the back we peeked at the two alpacas, the brown one had discovered a feather and decided to eat it, then spit it out, then eat it again. Quite silly.

The main attraction is the petting part with all the goats, probably two or three dozen of them. A pet a piece again, no wasting time on a singular goat for Hunter. Although he did spend quite some time in the barn laughing as some of the goats got rather rambunctious and shoved. One little one nearly toppled him over and climbed on top of him.

After a brief (ie: three repeated trips back) stop to wash and dry hands, we paused at the guinea pig and rabbit enclosure. He wasn't too interested though and we quickly moved on. A nice picture of the huge barn at the back on the bottom right and Hunter figuring out how to climb the fences (he was very proud).

Another pause to look at some more ducks and one of the minature horses, who got quite close and looked right at us. Lolo took him into the finch aviary where he spent quite a bit of time watching and laughing.

The last part of the tour was one of the best, the stops at the baby pig den. Big mama 'Sweetie' was minding the piglets quite well the first time and nursing the second time we stopped by. There were five piglets that were about three days old and quite cute!

The time at the Petting Zoo came to a close and we moved on to the Beacon Drivein for some grub. Nothing like a summer lunch out on the open patio. Hunter had some fun with his 'baby cone' as you can see. ;-)

We made a stop in at the manor where my Grandma is, for a quick visit. Had much fun pushing all the buttons in the elevator and then running circles around her room touching all things technological. He had to figure out how to turn the fan on and off, then the DVD player on and off then the TV on and then he wanted them all on at the same time. We didn't stay too long but I think she enjoyed it.

We moved off to Buddies Toys where he finally got the Byron bulldozer from Thomas & Friends that he's been talking about for a couple weeks. Then off to Willows Beach for a bit of fun in the light sprinkle of rain that was coming down. We dug a big hole and stuck things in it and threw sand and enjoyed the scenery.

What fun!

Mon, 11 Aug 2008 08:15:33 GMT

This is late posted, from July 31st

On July 31st Hunter and I had our final goodbye visit with Cathy and the other providers at his daycare. It's been a very emotional sort of time and very difficult to leave after essentially four years.

I first became involved with the school, slightly wary and unimpressed, back in August of 2004. But I decided to give it a leap of faith and it was one of the best decisions I ever made. I first attended as a "prego" (pregnant student) from Sept to Nov of 2004. After I had Hunter, I came back for "New Mum's Group" from Feb to July of 2005. Hunter first started attending the daycare in Sept of 2007 at around 21 months old. At the time, he was slightly stunted and was slow to talk and had only just learned to walk. Within a few weeks of being at the daycare, he was snatching up dozens of words and learned to be confident with walking and quickly running. He attended the daycare on and off from then on out, often sneaking in "on exception". It was purely because of them and their kindness that I have been able to go to school and work over the past couple years.

It's hard to believe that it's all over. We gave cards and flowers and there was hugs and well wishes. It was a great goodbye but it's still sad that it's over.

Mon, 11 Aug 2008 05:25:15 GMT

Met Nana downtown to go to the Bug Zoo, which we'd never been to before.

All pictures described going from the top left to right.

He's quite 'into' bugs. At daycare, he'd always been the first one to touch the ones that would find their way on to the deck and protect them from the other kids. He's very gentle and so it was finally time to take him to see some real big bugs.

It's mostly just a large room divided in two with about 12-20 terrariums. At the top right Hunter's looking at the Brazilian Salmon Pink Birdeater, related to the 'Goliath Birdeater': the largest spider in the world. The cute sign out front. The middle left is a tank of Walking Sticks. Hard to see them but you can make out a few. Hunter checking out the Bush Crickets (which are also the closeup at the bottom right corner). I'm not positive but I think the bottom left corner is a Thorny Devil.

Moving on, there was a bit of an opportunity to hold some of the bugs but it was super crowded. There was probably 50 people in this like 20x20 room and I mostly tried to move to the less-crowded terrariums. At the top left is the Black Widow terrarium, you can see it in the bottom right corner. Beside it at the top right is an Uropygi Whipscorpion. Below is the common Mexican Redknee Tarantula and as you can see, I did actually hold it (bottom right). It was quite nerve-wracking at first as I am quite deathly afraid of spiders but it didn't move an inch and was actually quite cute and fuzzy. The middle right is an Emporer Scorpion being held by the tour guide. I didn't feel the need to hold that one. It's also at the bottom left, in it's cage. Only adults were allowed to hold them, for fairly obvious reasons. They're only mildly poisonous but it does feel like a bigsting and those who are allergic to stings tend to have allergic reactions to spider bites or scorpion stings.

Continuing the tour onward, Hunter is peeking at some sort of scorpion, didn't catch the tag on that one. Beside that are the awesome Giant Brazilian Cockroaches, which can get to be 9 cms long and are over 320 million years old as a species! In the middle right are one of my favourite bugs, the Giant African Millipede (also their tank at the middle right and Hunter with one below that). On the bottom left are the awesome Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches. Hunter was quite enthralled with his little black-legged friend.

We trekked onward, although he was getting slightly bored and restless at this point. There was a fairly large terrarrium with desert beetles: Blue Death Feigning Beetle who are herbivores that live mostly off of seeds; Cactus Longhorn Beetles, named for their long antennae; Pinacate Beetle, famous for their pungent defensive "farts" (they're also commonly called 'Stink Beetles' but not related to 'Stink Bugs'); and Velvet Ants, which are actually wingless female wasps (only the males have wings) and have one of the most painful stings on the planet. Beside that is a picture of the walls, which were littered with dozens and dozens of butterfly plaques. Middle left is one of my other favourite bugs, the Hercules Beetle which is one of the largest beetles and can measure up to 6 inches from tip to tail. Middle right is one of the Cactus Longhorns, not actually on his head. Bottom left is Hunter peeking at the Tailess Whipscorpion I think and beside that at bottom right is the cute Atlas Beetle also called a "3-horned Scarab" or "Rhino Beetle", comes from southeast Asia. Only the males have the large horns. The larvae spend 2-3 years inside a rotten log before pupating. I would've loved to hold either of them.

This was possibly one of the most amazing parts of the exhibit, the spider section. I don't like 'em but I am enthralled by them. You can see Hunter looking at the Brazilian Salmon Pink Birdeater in most of them. Neither of these spiders were open to being held, at least while we were there. You can see my hand for size comparison. At the bottom left is some sort of large spider, it was right next to the Birdeater so I'm not sure if it's another one or what it is, but you can see the shadow inside the web. And the funny poster they had. Would love that for my living room.

Last but not least, a few randoms really. They had a fancy wall of Leaf-Cutter Ants which is in the top pictures. Middle left is a Tailless Whipscorpion, not sure middle right. The bottom are a tank of Predaceuous Diving Beetles and Whirlygig Beetles.

It was quite a lot of fun. And checks off another on our list of 'Places to Go', we're certainly making good time now!

# ~~Undersea Gardens (2007)~~
# ~~Beacon Hill Park (2007) (2008)~~
# ~~Beacon Hill Petting Zoo (2007) (2008)~~
# ~~Rathtrevor Beach (2007)~~
# ~~BC Museum (2007)~~
# Wax Museum
# Maritime Museum
# ~~Willows Beach (2007)~~
# Butchart Gardens
# ~~Butterfly World (2007)~~
# ~~Bug Zoo (2008)~~
# ~~Imax Theater (2007)~~
# ~~Saanich Historical Museum (2007) (2008)~~
# ~~Fort Rodd Hill (2007) (2008)~~
# Miniature World
# ~~Esquimalt Lagoon (2007)~~
# Witty's Lagoon
# Sooke Potholes
# ~~Western Speedway (2008)~~
# ~~Chemainus (2007) (2008)~~

Thu, 07 Aug 2008 02:21:48 GMT

This is the Fisgard Lighthouse part of the Fort Rodd Hill entry.

Scenery looking back to the fort and then out to sea.

We saw about 8 helicopters go by just in our 15 minutes around Fisgard. Hunter thought they were too loud.

A little model in the entrance

This map was 3D and very cool, sucky that the picture is blurry.

They had a neat section about local wrecks but none of the other pictures really turned out. This one did and it's neat.

Random ship.

From the picture on the right hand wall:
"The Tower
The 51 steps of this coast-iron spiral staircase rise through more than four revolutions to arrive at the small, octagonal lamp room above. The lightkeeper climbed these stairs at least once every four hours to trim the wick. In bad weather, he made more frequent trips to the tower, to check that condensation or wet snow on the windows had not dimmed Fisgard's beam of light."

There's like 30 rules so I'll write a couple. ;-)

"1. The lamps shall be kept burning bright and clear every night from sunset to sunrise.

2. The wicks must be trimmed every four hours, or oftener if neccessary.

3. The Lightkeepers shall keep a regular and constant watch in the Light-room throughout the night. The first Watch shall begin at Sunset. The Lightkeepers are to take the Watches alternately. The length of the Watch shall not, in ordinary cases, exceed four hours; but during the period between the months of October and March the first watch shall change at eight o'clock."

Didn't get a close-up of the text but it talks about lobsters and Fort Victoria. Very random I know. :-D

Another view of the lobby.

That's it!

Thu, 07 Aug 2008 02:16:27 GMT

It was the 2008 trip to Fort Rodd Hill today. I got a little snap happy and ended up taking almost 300 pictures, which I was only able to weed down to 230 pictures. Needless to say, I've picked about 40 from the Fort and 15 or so from Fisgard Lighthouse, which I'll break up into two entries.

Since we did go last year, you can view most of the "regular" pictures in that entry. I've mostly only included some of the stuff that was new. I managed to get lots of sign pictures so I can actually write up stuff this time!

The weather was about perfect and it was only $7.80 for the three of us (me, my aunt and Hunter) so it couldn't have been more awesome. Hunter was a little less interested in the guns and machines this year than last year but he was such a trooper with the 3 hours of almost non-stop walking we did.

The Entrance

"90mm Anti-Aircraft Gun

During the 1950s this type of anti-aircraft gun was part of the Victoria-Esquimalt defences, although it was not used here at Fort Rodd Hill.

This American-made weapon had begun to replace the British-designed 3.7 inch gun as the Canadian Army's heavy AA defence after the Second World War. It had a maximum vertical range of 30,000 feet and fired 22 rounds a minute."

Upper Battery

"AMMUNITION
Calibre - 6 inch
Weight - 100 pounds
Range - 10,000 yards

17.45 inches long (the one on the bottom)"

Underground Magazine

"An essential part of a coast artillery battery was safe adn secure ammunition storage. This underground area served that purpose. Its uses required that it be: (1) close to the gun emplacement for fast transfer of ammunition; (2) bombproof; (3) dry.

Picnic!!

Walkway to Lower Battery/Fisgard

1942 Willys Jeep
"Through arctic cold, desert heat, or jungle humidity, the rugged reliability of this no-frills "Vehicle, General Purpose" (G.P.) made it the most successful and recognizable Allied vehicle of the Second World War. Between 1939 and 1945 more than 500,000 were produced.

Here on the Home Front, Jeeps were used as staff cars to deliver supplies and dispatches. They were often driven by members of the Canadian Women's Army Corp."

"Warrent Officer Married Quarters".

"Lewis Shipman, of the Canadian Army Medical Corps, died when a German sub torpedoed the hospital ship 'Llandovery Castle' on June 27, 1918. Out of 258 people on board, only 24 survived. All 14 Canadian Nursing Sisters on board were killed."

"Shrapnel balls from the Somme; these lead balls are collected by hundreds of thousands every year from farmers' fields in France and Belgium, formerly battlefields. Shrapnel shells were designed to burst in mid-air, and shower advancing troops with these lethal bullets."

Casemates Barracks

"New Year's Dinner in Men's Mess Hall, Fort Macaulay, 1943."

"Fort Rodd Hill Casemate Barracks kitchen and outdoor mess hall, summer camp c. 1937. Note screen-door cooler at left."

Fortress Plotting Room

In August, 1941 - nearly two years after the outbreak of war - the CWAC was formed. By the end of the war, more than 21,000 women had served in the CWAC, in Canada, the United Kingdom, Italy and Northwest Europe."

"You can free a man to fight" was the unofficial motto of the CWAC. As non-combatants, women soldiers replaced men in clerical and communications jobs, and served as mechanics, armourers and cooks. The CWAC's wartime role in the Victoria-Esquimalt defences included staffing the ordinance (gun parts) stores in Work Point Barracks, and driving supplies, mail and personnel between the forts in jeeps or trucks. Women also served with the 2nd Anti-Aircraft Operations Room, the nerve center of anti-aircraft defences. The CWAC was disbanded in August 1945."

Lower Battery

"As in Upper Battery, this structure was designed to accomodate the guard when the battery was fully manned.

There is a living room, kitchen and bedroom. One wall is loopholed with one opening angled to allow rifle fire across the front of the gate.

The guard stationed here would be responsible for patrol of the battery perimeter walls, examination of those passing through the gates and guarding any prisoners that might be held.

Following the First World War, this building was used for a variety of purposes including soldiers' accommodation, a battery office, a radio communication center and a medical facility."

"Orders for Sentries

1. Orders will be read to Sentries by the N.C.O in charge of guard.

2. The sentry will be informed of the object for which he is posted.

3. The front of his post and the extent of his beat will be clearly pointed out when first posted.

4. Sentries must not quit their arms, lounge or converse with anyone on any pretence, nor may they stand in their sentry box in good or even moderate weather.

5. Double sentries moving about on their post will always turn outwards when turning about."

Lower Battery: underground magazine
Step Two: The shells were moved separately to the guns. Each weighed 100 pounds."

Lower Battery: underground magazine
Step Three: A shell was louded into the gun breech and rammed home, followed by an explosive cartridge. The breech was secure, a fuse was set and the gun barrel was raised to the firing position."

On the way out

"Hotchkill Quick Firing 6 Pounder."
"This gun is a Hotchkiss Quick Firing 6 pounder, a type mounted in the battery at Duntze Head, 1900-1904, on the opposite side of Esquimalt harbour. It was an integral part of the Victoria-Esquimalt coast defences"

"40mm Bofors Light AA gun and crew of NCO instructors at Albert Head, c.1943. Range: 15,300 feet vertical. Crew: 6. Rate: 120 rounds/minute (automatic), 60 rounds/minute (manual)."

"13-pdr AA gun at Work Point Barracks, Esquimalt. c. 1926. Range: 19,000 feet."

"3.7 inch Heavy AA gun during a recruitment drive at Bay Street Armouries, 1948. Range: 39,000 feet vertical. Rate: 12 rounds/minute."

*phew* That's it! Thanks for looking. It was a great time! Check out the Fisgard Lighthouse entry for more pictures from today!

Tue, 05 Aug 2008 21:56:45 GMT

The academic ball keeps rolling. Worked for another 40 minutes or so with Hunter this afternoon. Today he decided he wanted to use his Count the Funny Bugs flashcards.

We went through 1-10, just looking at each card. Then I lined them up in proper order and would ask him "Where's three?" "Where's six?" and then he'd flip them over. Then we went through each card randomly and counted the bugs on the back.

Then we tried drawing numbers on scrap paper but he seemed to want to just scribble so I gave that up fast. Once again, favoring the righty.

We stopped and grabbed a snack of blueberries and came back for another crack at it. This time I grabbed 10 blocks of lego and would line those up and we counted those, starting with one and adding until we got to 10. That's what he's counting in this video:

We worked a little in his "Preschool Fun" workbook and got ten pages of that done, nothing too intense there. Mostly drawing, tracing and colouring work. He surprised me a bit knowing what shadows are. He's great at identifying matches and those "What's Missing" puzzles. We're learning about patterns too.

After all was said and done he got to pick a prize out of the prize box and picked one of the wormies which amused me (along with his earlier statement "I love bugs!" while working with the flashcards). I love bugs too. Gonna need to refill the box soon.

Mon, 14 Jul 2008 02:44:35 GMT

Got the Ikea stuff in yesterday! What a pain putting it together can be, a hammer was involved where it probably shouldn't have been. I think the real adventure was getting the Expedit upright as it weighs 150 lbs.

It's so amazingly nice to have more storage and I can already see how much it helps to keep the room clean. Hunter loves it and loves that he can get things on/off the shelf himself. He can even reach the top ones if he brings his stool over.

The Latt table was also a huge success and I barely had it upright before he was playing on it. At one point he sat down, hit the top, grinned and said "Bring me toast!"

You can see the Apa toybox under here.

I can't wait to get my monkey and letters in and I have some other ideas brewing as well.

Fri, 11 Jul 2008 02:45:00 GMT

Since it seems we're not moving in the near future, I'm finally "doing" Hunter's room. I've always wanted to fix it up but never really bothered since it always seemed like we might be moving, never had the money or time, etc. It's bugging me being so boring and generic.

I just purchased this awesome wall mural off ebay:

I'll put it by one of his doors (depending on which way it needs to face) and then I plan to get some black wooden letters in this sort of font spelling out "Monkeying Around" put semi-unevenly beside the mural.

Jason's heading over to Ikea in a couple days and I've put in a request for a white Expedit shelf and Latt table/chair set. Also eyeballing a couple other matching pieces in that wood/white theme.

That's about as far as I've gotten so far, I have some other ideas I'm kicking around but this'll be my summer project. ;-)

Fri, 11 Jul 2008 02:13:44 GMT

We took Hunt to Beckwith park last night again. It was a lot busier but we still had a lot of fun.

He was hesitant to go in the water but eventually started taking some steps towards it. I think waterpark style fun is just something he has to work up to. He had lots of fun climbing the other things and playing in the dirt and we even found a bulldozer toy.

Headed off to DQ for an after-park treat!

I love the intense concentration here.

And a few of us being silly

Sat, 05 Jul 2008 20:34:51 GMT

I decided to take it upon myself to make Hunt a large reusable wall-schedule. It turned out to be a far more ambitious and messy project than I originally thought. Still not finished but I'm having a lot of fun making it!

Humble beginning

And growing

And growing...

Messy linework

Working on the "Time-Cards". For those Canadians, yes, I'm tracing my SIN card for an outline. ;-)

So far completed. I got slightly bored and off-track after working for a couple hours and decided to have some fun with some of the cards.

So far! As you can see, what started off as a simple 2x2 ended up being more of a 4.5x4.5 project.

I'll have to stick tabs on the back of the cards and cut slits in the middle of each time-section so that it can be re-used. I also need to finish about 50 more "Time Cards" but it's a fun way to sit down and kill a couple hours and should be good fun incentive to actually follow a schedule more once it's finished.

Sat, 05 Jul 2008 20:04:38 GMT

It was the year-ender at Hunter's daycare. He'll be staying on for another month but most of his friends (Shayden, Mykayla) have gone on to other daycares now. We got two CDs, one with an awesome movie and one with all the daycare pictures, so here's a few to share.

With Cathy, his caregiver

Mykayla

Jackie, another care-giver

Potatohead Fun!

Choo Choo!

Feeding the ducks @ Bowker, with Shayden

Art time. Hunter always talks about the art-room, he loves it.

I was here for this, they made a garbage truck.

Architect @ Work

Eric, Hunt and KK (Mykayla)

Eric, Damien, Dominic and Hunt in the sandbox

I don't even know lol

Marshmellow on a stick

Mykala reading to him

I'm really going to miss this daycare when it ends at the end of July. They've been so wonderful to us. We've been in and out quite a few times, they've always pulled and made special exceptions for us and I'm so appreciative of it. Hunter's always had a blast and made so many friends there. Really really wonderful.

Sat, 05 Jul 2008 19:54:11 GMT

Uncle Dan and Jenn had a jewelery show so we stopped by to visit.

Jenn

Uncle Dan

He was obsessed with the fountain, kept throwing money in and washing his hands off. I think he would've jumped in if I'd let him.

Neither of us were much sure of this modern art stuff

With Nana and Lolo

Enjoying a very lemony Lemon Tart

Sat, 05 Jul 2008 19:43:43 GMT

Happy Father's Day to all the Dad's out there! We headed back to Saanich Historical Museum for a second time. I think he enjoys it even more every time we go.

Sat, 05 Jul 2008 19:33:32 GMT

It was the 2008 Oak Bay Tea Party and we had a blast. It happens once a year and the parade goes right by our house, so we just have to drag our chairs out front and watch from the lawn. Then there's a midway amusement park that runs for two days down at the beach a few blocks away. It's a pretty fun time and I've been waiting for Hunter to be old enough to really enjoy it all and he definitely was this year.

He even tried a couple of the games. One is a simple Duck-Grab, where you grab bobbing ducks and on the bottom is "S" "M" "L" for the size of your prize. And the other was a fishing one where you use your magnet pole to grab alligators with magnets on them and also the size of the prize on the bottom. He also tried the hammer strength one but since I had to help him with it, no pictures. But here's the spoils, he wanted the pink Princess hammer lol.

Eagerly waiting

With Nana and Lolo

Oh yeah ;-)

Westie!

The Midway

Sat, 05 Jul 2008 19:25:05 GMT

It was the GAP Reunion today. For those that don't know GAP was the education program that I was in during my pregnancy, which serves pregnant and parenting teen girls. It's a wonderful amazing program and there was no way we were missing the reunion!

Hunter (black shirt) and Shandra (I think) playing in the sandbox

Speeches and Prizes, alas we didn't win anything

All the people, you can see Cathy, Hunter's daycare caregiver in the yellow dress up front

And a couple randoms

Slowly expanding his food repertoire, now including broccoli with "sprinkly cheese" (parmesan).

Sat, 05 Jul 2008 19:17:38 GMT

A busy day again. We headed out to the store, then off to Beacon Hill Petting Zoo and then off to Uncle Damon's for a BBQ! Tiring!

Some of the scenic views of BH

Love this girl, I think her name was Daisy or Petunia or one of those flower names.

The ducks

Cute baby ducks

Check out this guy's horns, crazy

And then off to the BBQ!

What a great day :-D

Mon, 05 May 2008 03:33:32 GMT

Lovely weekend.

We ran out of diapers on Thurs and didn't buy any until this afternoon and somehow made it through with only two accidents. Not too bad! He's refused to try going potty at daycare all of a sudden so I have to use diapers for that but I'm trying to leave him in undies at home and he does so well, even all night at home. It's a frustrating sort of thing as we're just hanging on the last wire of diapers.

We got new shoes, he's now a 6.5-7. They're Lightning McQueen sandals that light up. He's never happy with them at first and yelled and hollered for his "fire truck boots" but he adjusts pretty fast.

Spent yesterday chilling at home and today over at Jason's, so without further adieu...

Cleaned up and re-organized his room

He likes to hide now

And from today...

And a video...

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 00:29:19 GMT

A little grumpy after daycare...

What a busy little day we've already had!

Hunter went off to daycare and had a blast. It was about 12 degrees today and lovely out so they spent about 3 hours outside, playing in the yard and with the sandbox. I envy him.

He was a little grumpy when I picked him up but some treats and the promise of fun at home helped. We picked up some food and fed the ducks on the way home, then played with waterballoons, then had a snack and now it's relaxation time.

We tried two different areas and we just could not attract any ducks. We managed to get a couple and that was it.

Hunter made friends with this cat on the walk home.

And stopped to see this Westie

Some water balloon fun

Nothin like a good water balloon in the rain

Why won't you break?!?!

Dirty hands!! Cheese!!

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 03:05:59 GMT

We had family brunch this morning. Dan and Jenn came as well as Auntie Lolo, Uncle Bruce and cousin Paul. Hunter had such a blast.

He helped Dan take a look at the broken DVD player..

But then that got old...

So he opted to have some fun

Everything is truck related for Hunter, even the boogyman which is a scary garbage truck that hides in the bushes outside his window at night. He's checking for it here...

Having some food

Auntie Lolo and cousin Paul

"I want jam......no jam, just honey."

And then it was time to go crazy with the Elefun

Attack toddler

I've been oggling some quality wooden toys for him and started to make some purchases. A while back I got him the wooden food sets from Melissa & Doug. There's just something so amazing about quality wood toys with good craftsmanship. So much cooler than junky and tacky plastic. So I've oggled the Terrace Dollhouse by Plan Toys for a while now and finally picked it up yesterday. I get a 15% discount so it was a great price for the house and a few accessory sets. Hunter is loving it and I'm loving him playing with something semi educational and quality (not tv or cars).

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 10:11:09 GMT

Hunter and I managed to simultaneously feel better and get sick with something else over the weekend, ugh! Thankfully this is just a lowly cold and a few sniffles didn't make us back out of Hunter's friend Preston's third birthday on Saturday.

Hunter on the floor in the background

He found alllll the trucks, surprise

Preston and his mum

Cake monsters

Hard watching other people get presents!

Investigating the present we got Preston

Heading out back

Pinata!

CANDY!

It was 19 degrees and beautiful so we walked down to Gyro Beach and spent a bit of time there. Too hot to stay too long but man it was gorgeous and Hunter had a blast until he smacked his head on the concrete holes.

Jason has a great picture up at his lj as well. ogier30

Wed, 02 Apr 2008 03:52:48 GMT

This one from Mon.

What a bad few days. :(

Hunter is sick sick sick. He started vomiting on Saturday morning, early and ended up vomiting about 20 times on Saturday. We took him to the clinic, which basically told us that he was sick (gee, shocker!) and to keep him hydrated. Nothing much would stay down, not even ginger ale or pedialyte. But he was slightly better Sunday, still complained a lot about being sick. But no vomiting Sun or Mon, even though I took the day off work Mon to stay home with him. This morning though he woke up and vomited twice. Jason took the day off work to take him so I didn't have to miss two days in a row and I guess he threw up at least a few times over at Jason's. He's been so sluggish and just sleeps in between throwing up, which is so unlike him. He hasn't said two words to me all evening and can barely stand up. We took him back to the clinic today, who finally told us that he has Gastroenteritis. So we're entering Day 5 tomorrow. I've tried Gravol suppositories and he's sleeping at least.

My poor little guy. :(

And from tonight...

Thu, 27 Mar 2008 04:07:30 GMT

And as a followup to my last post, here it is! :-D

It's actually a terrible picture of him, I'm surprised they went with it considering how many they took, but it's awesome none the less.

Mon, 24 Mar 2008 05:56:17 GMT

Hunter was shutterbugging with my old camera this evening! It's a Kodak Easyshare CX6330.

A picture of his room

His bed

Stickers

Took me a while to figure out what he had that was pink, it's his Easter basket

And another basket

It can be quite a game figuring out what some of his pictures are!

Mon, 24 Mar 2008 05:52:42 GMT

It's Easter '08 here! And we were BUSY!!!!

We debated a community Easter Egg hunt downtown but 9:45 is a bit too early and it was a bit too grey for us. So we did a small one in our back yard and through the upstairs of the house and Hunter had a blast. Not without being slightly frought as I went to take pictures of the event and one of my batteries didn't charge. A quick replace and we were ready to go! Not quite, as I also forgot to put the memory card back in. Eventually I did get my act in gear and got some pictures.

He takes this Egg search seriously

With Nana, spoils of the hunt!

Look at all that loot, just from the eggs!

To burn off the candy, we took him out to feed the ducks..

...but there were only a few and so we moved on to the park

Swing!

And did some car slide racing

And he got photographed for the paper, we'll see if the pictures came out at all. He was more interested in having the photographer talk about his cars, than posing.

And didn't want to walk home

With his basket

And we did some painting

What a day! I'm sure I'll get around to uploading the videos eventually too.